Soccer's World Cup was a big play on the Web, but streaming video failed to score with fans in the U.S. Chinese Web sites offering streaming video and play-by-play in various languages were abundant,
but shoddy quality and a lack of English commentary, meant most U.S. users were forced to keep refreshing a browser at work while reading a text play-by-play. For users with certain ISPs, ESPN offered
360, a streaming video service, but aside from Verizon, most major ISPs didn't carry the service. "I would have happily paid to get a video feed of the game," said one fan. So why didn't anyone offer
this capability? Because broadcast rights limit streaming video over the Internet, too. The BBC, the UK's public broadcaster, controlled access, only allowing live streams to UK-based IP addresses.
However, many people in Europe didn't have to watch games on their computers because most of the games took place in the evenings after work. Just 10 percent of the UK public watched the World Cup
over streaming media, said research group TelecityRedbus. Yahoo, which hosted FIFA's official Web site, fared better. It streamed more than 138 million video highlights to World Cup fans for free
during the month long tournament; meanwhile, 4.2 billion pages were views, more than double the number in 2002.
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